Branching out of Amazon

Not getting out, Amazon is still the main site for me. But recently, I have more sales outside Amazon and they only have about two titles that aren’t free. Amazon, I must say, isn’t giving me much love nowadays. It could be because of the summer slump we actually experience every year (which I hate, I think all authors hate). But yes, I’ll be branching out once KDP select agreements on my books are done. I like to see what these other sites would offer me.

What I’ve heard from some of the experts in self publishing is that one needs to value publishing in different online books stores for the exposure. Because apparently, exposure is gold. So I’ll be experimenting on this if it’s true, and I hope it’s true.

Also, I’ll be putting out the prologue of my book one of these days, a teaser of some sort.   

I'll be changing The Bounds cover, it looks like erotica (-_-).

What a Prawn has to say: AMAZON vs HACHETTE

Just today, amazon sent me a letter of request. It's a little bit long and I know you might already know about it, but if you don't here's the jist of what they're asking me to send to Hachette CEO, Michael Pietsch:

- We have noted your illegal collusion. Please stop working so hard to overcharge for ebooks. They can and should be less expensive.

- Lowering e-book prices will help -- not hurt -- the reading culture, just like paperbacks did.

- Stop using your authors as leverage and accept one of Amazon's offers to take them out of the middle.

- Especially if you're an author yourself: Remind them that authors are not united on this issue. 

This is about the "lower the ebook prices" by Amazon towards Hachette. And I'm still having second thoughts about this "sending the email" thing. Here's what I posted in Writer's Cafe.

I don't know what to think about this. There are various parts of my brain and each one of them are shouting something (I think they're my conscience). 

1st part: Let writers write. I'm a fracking writer, not a business man. SHEESH! 

2nd part: Yes you're a writer but you never heard of Hachette because its name hasn't reached your country until this corporation wars. You've only heard of Amazon. 

3rd part: Let Hachette do their thing, you know the sayings: 'adapt or die' & 'survival of the fittest'  

4th part: Most of your income comes from Amazon. And you never heard of Hachette, right? (until this... this dispute) Stand for amazon, have some balls and do what they requested you to do! 

5th part: Let the readers decide, like what 3rd's said: survival of the fittest. 

6th part: But do readers care about this? I mean... do they? If I'm a reader I don't care if they shoot themselves on the foot. 

7th part: Remember Henry Ford who proved his cars are better against the company who had patented automobiles. Stand for something, I don't care what something, just stand.  

I think I'm on amazon on this... 

History does repeats itself, maybe in another form and in another way, but it does repeat itself. Remember the Dark ages and the printing press.

Why have I mentioned Mr. Ford? I've just recently watched History Channel that's why. He stood for something that would benefit all. I'm not completely with Amazon all the time but I'm with them in this. Amazon is a corporation, a business, and they don't care about me a single prawn. But they are made of prawns, they care about that.

Many authors, I know, won't care. But at least I should.  
  
Maybe I'll send Mr. Pietsch a quote.

Free: Synthetics

It's free to keep the algos up. LOL. hopefully. 

Enjoy!

They called it a bio-technical revolution when the scientists have succeeded in developing a complete artificial DNA. That was in 2010. 
Humans since then can reprogram life itself, able to create new organisms from viruses to bacteria…. 

Since then we are still alive… 
… We still wake up… 

But that’s going to change… 

Disceptarix

1

He is the last of them…

A voice said; a voice that came beyond every logic and every known thing that could be explained. It came from one of two beings that communicated (and always be communicating) in the form of meaning. Not words, not language—but meaning itself, plain and direct. Who they were? Well, they weren't alive, they were not dead either, they were nothing but eternal, those who existed in time before ours, before creation, before faith, before all emotions and before the knowledge of the opposites. But this is not a story about them, at least not yet. This is a story of the “He” who was the last of the other “them”. And who was this “He”? Who was this individual that the Eternals took the trouble in looking at? It was only a boy, a plain old boy who was, in the moment, sleeping on a mattressless bed. There was nothing extraordinary about him, nothing appealing, and nothing you could route for.

Well…

At least not yet…

Are you sure?

Yes I am. 

So it begins…

The Gamer

So, I’ve finished my fourteenth title and I’ve just posted it on Amazon. It’s titled “The Gamer”, it’s a scifi, and I don’t know what it is other than that. It’s a story about simulated gaming worlds and all of its complications and consequences.

Yes, it’s free for a certain period of time (in this case, five days). So if you’re reading this and have a kindle, go check it out. Here's the link: The Gamer

Funny Inapropriate Thoughts

The only reason why I’m writing this is because my printer broke down on me and I am about to buy one. I was trying to repair it since morning, and so in the afternoon, I finally gave up. Hate it. I should be editing a short by now, but no, this had to happen.

Anyway my inexistent reader (that’s a paradox right there if you’re reading this right now), I have a very little reasons to blog, that’s why I’m not fond of updating now and then. And these posts are unedited, raw, so it’s a little bit weird, I know, when I’m reading them last year.

What happened to me since November?

Not much, still a struggling writer, still reading success books that make me feel less hopeless now and then (they’re a good read, really good read. Any books by Malcolm Gladwell and Robert Greene). I’ve finished a couple of manuscripts, averaging about 70K words. But sorry, my non-existent reader (yet), I’m a slowmo at editing. Still have not enough profit for an editor, a lovely, dedicated editor that is your friend.

Ever writer wants that, a good editor. My dream editor would be a smart librarian/stripper girl (if I ever commit to a girlfriend in the future, I hope she won’t see this), and I would woo that witty girl. Okay, I’m going out of line here. See? See this? When I’m at the keyboard in the middle of the night, my words flow like hell and it basically translated to thoughts. Wait, that sentence’s weird. I’ll simplify it. These, these things I’m typing now, are my thoughts. This could be very dangerous and I might have lost you in the first sentence of the fourth paragraph.

That’s terrible, I’ve lost my non-existent reader. Pathetic.

The Bounds is out. I don’t know if I mentioned it in my other posts, but there, I still said it. Like I said earlier, I’m working with a short scifi, the book three of my series, a continuation of the short Synthetics, another urban fantasy book, another book of my second series… God, I’ve just realized this… that’s so efffing many…    

The Breakdown

Just watched Catching Fire and I thought it has stayed true to the book, none of that Percy Jackson Blasphemy. But to be honest, I didn’t enjoy the movie today, not that it’s a bad movie, it’s because I got a scathing review of the synthetics that is most of all, true.  

Hate to say this but the editing I did was skimming through it and that’s why there’s no, in any way, excuse. I edited and the latest edition is already publishing. I haven’t eaten yet because of that, I guess it’s a small obsession of mine (to have that glowing five star review. What kind of writer doesn’t want that?). I just hope when I have enough money or my mom won the lottery (and if she shares the wealth) that I would pay a professional to proofread all of my works.

Of course “my works” at the current moment doesn’t mean a thing. Still have no any kind of success to backup the things I’m saying in this blog. But the thing is, and the one I’ve been asking myself for the past weeks: ‘Should I care?’

The right answer for me is a no. I believe that one should always walk and nothing more, let the walk do the talking for you. These things that I’m having right now could be something synonymous to a breakdown due to that review, but it’s a lesser breakdown because I’m in no way intoxicated when I’m writing this. The closest to that is that I have very little sleep for the past two days, meaning my mind is all over the place. But I’m considering this as me growing a thicker hide. Yes, the hide of a self-pub writer with very less support system; meaning none of my friends write or anything that deals with literature; an indie that gets more bad things than the good. No rewards here people!  

Of course, this isn’t my first brawl with a bad review. I got a book back then which I got the same feeling. I know that you can’t please anybody and the world certainly isn’t a nice place (No it’s nice too, sometimes it’s just bad—just bad.)

I love Hemingway’s relationship to his critics, and also the quote: “Critics are men who watch a battle from a high place then come down and shoot the survivors.” A true critic for me is sharing the positive and a negative. Every single thing in this world has equal negative and positive things.

Oh, and yes, I know this post has the possibility to bite me in the ass someday. Ready your teeth, I shall have a thick bum that would eventually destroy them.